2012: Beginning in a Promise

Ah, yes. Another year. 2012.
"A fresh start," as I heard often this morning at church.
So far, it feels fresh. It actually feels a lot like 2011:
50 degrees and rainy. (At least, that's how it was for us Ohioans.)
On the way home from church, it was raining. (In January!)
The clouds were beautiful, the sunlight streaming through...
I glanced out the passenger side window and saw the most magnificent rainbow I've ever seen.
It looked as though someone had taken the world's largest paintbrush and the world's most vivid watercolors and painted, arc by arc, a rainbow.
Normally, it seems that rainbows end at the ground, or just trail off in the sky.
Not so here. Where it seems it should have stopped at the ground, the colors shone and shimmered on.

Magnificent.

Beautiful.

Painted by God.

That reminded me of a promise.
In Genesis chapter 9 Noah and his family exit the Ark.
God promises that he would never destroy the Earth by water again.

"I promise every living creature that the earth and those living on it will never again be destroyed by a flood. The rainbow that I have put in the sky will be My sign to you that I will keep this promise forever. When I send clouds over the Earth, and a rainbow appears in the sky, I will remember my promise to you and to all other living creatures....The rainbow will be a sign of that solemn promise."

You know, come to think of it, the rainbow also reminds me of something else: God is always here. He never leaves you. Always there. He stands by you, and loves you, and will help you, no matter what you're going through in life. No matter how harsh, how awful, how bad or horrible the storms you're going through right now (and the storms to come), He'll be there.
What a promise. What a reminder. What a Master Artist.

What a God.